Tracing the Roots of Senayan’s Insanely Popular Sate Taichan

Sate is all about evolution. This humble street snack, a simple meal that consists of chunks of meat skewered on a stick and grilled over coals rose from the streets of Java. Today, sate can be found all over Southeast Asia and as far afield as Suriname and the Netherlands. But hundreds of years ago, street sellers in Java were putting their own spin on the Indian kebab, selling the skewers to hungry Indian and Arab traders. The dish, like many things in Indonesian culture, was a local twist on an international import; an early instance of culinary fusion so successful that sate lost its foreign roots in the national consciousness and became something wholly Indonesian.

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And that evolution continues today. There are countless regional versions of the disk. Sate Madura is covered in sticky kecap manis and savory peanut sauce . Sate Kulit is made from crispy chicken skins. Sate Maranggi is sweet and aromatic.

But if you want to see the most-popular re-imagining of sate available today, all you need to do is head over to Jalan Asia-Afrika, in Senayan, South Jakarta, any night after 9 p.m. and stop by one of the dozens of street spots advertising something called "sate taichan" with colorful, low-budget neon signs.

Sate taichan is a relatively new addition to the sate world. Amir, a traveling sate vendor from Madura, East Java, told VICE that he created sate taichan in 2014 while he tried to fulfill the requests of a Japanese customer looking for sate that tasted a bit closer to Japanese yakitori.

"He asked me to grill the sate, but not with its typical peanut sauce," Amir told VICE. "When the sate was cooked, he asked me not to put any sauce on it, only add some salt and lime. The sambal was left off it too since he didn't like spicy food.

"He's the one who gave it a name, he immediately said this is sate taichan."

Now, with some minor alterations—the peanut sauce is still gone, but the spicy sambal has returned—the simple, spicy sate is everywhere. Sate taichan vendors have taken over the shoulders of Jalan Asia-Afrika, creating a minor traffic jam every night as motorists park roadside to chow down on some already legendary sate.

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"Taichan is not a staple food," said Bang Ucok, who decided to stick with his nasi goreng teri Medan instead of hopping on the sate taichan train. "We stuck with our product because trends come and go. If you're just following the trends, then there's no end to it all."

Others are taking the simple recipe for sate taichan using it as a foundation for their own creations. Juki, a former nasi goreng seller, invented his own dish called sate taichan panahan—named after the nearby archery center.

"Most of us were just fried rice sellers, but now we're selling sate taichan since it's more profitable," Juki told VICE. "I used to sell nasi goreng until past midnight, and I would probably sell 20 plates. Now I can sell 100-200 plates of taichan, so it's like an 80 percent increase in profits."

I stopped by Amir's sate cart one last time before heading home to see how he felt about creating something so popular. It's both a blessing and a curse. Amir made a version of sate that everyone loves, but then he lost control of his creation to a mob of copycats. Was he mad at all?

"I'm happy sate taichan is now everywhere," he told me. "I'm not depressed or anything. Everyone has their own fortunes."